


The Time of Year for Flowers

by lostprinceloki



Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-26
Updated: 2012-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-10 19:45:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostprinceloki/pseuds/lostprinceloki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I’ve split my sides, spilling the little portion of honesty I can muster. Don’t leave me here without an answer.” </p><p>In which Thor is given another life and Loki can't help but fall into it, once again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Time of Year for Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> My first Thor/Loki fic; I hope I do this otp justice, since there are so many amazing writers out there. Loosely based on the movieverse, no set date or anything. Thank you to anyone who reads this!

He’s on a shore.

Which, and when, is of little importance. A gravity, as dense as thickets of virgin mosses bending over backwards to scale impossible cathedral-like walls in their seemly nature, travels the distance from planet to planet and back again in seconds. 

He’s trying to relearn how to breathe. 

_open, pause, inhale, pace, settle, expand, travel, collect, open, pause, exhale._

The skies are finally found, they have left all the other worlds and are gathered into the fabric of this expanse on earth, melding with vibrancy and obscurity, and the clouds are stitches to the universe, directionless and coming undone as they float.

“Have you little knowledge of what is happening as you trifle among this dirt, brother?” 

A voice condemns and beckons him, and he turns his eyes away from the unmatched sovereignty the beauty holds against nature and man.

“Midgard is burning, and we will inherit her ashes, together. We are the heirs of the universe and so all the realms fall to our feet, starting here. Shall we let defeat harden our souls eternally, or softly allow victory to draw one another to our end?” 

Loki’s lips curve, and Thor lets the breeze touch the skin he cannot. 

“I know not of what you speak, trickster.” His words sound treasonous to his own ears.  

“Allow me to take you everywhere, brother. Allow me…” 

-

Autumn tastes like nostalgia; perhaps not for the same reason everyone expects. Thor has been in love with summer for years- he can’t remember what he can disconnect himself from, and every summer he forgets all but his name. 

His name is a curse, this city is a curse, and he wants to forget them too. 

September rolls around as it always does, warmly and forlornly. Thor lays in bed, picturing the boy in his dream, nameless and yet unbearably prominent. His voice was hard to recall, but he understood his  _eyes._  

What he didn’t understand was what he was trying to say. 

With an unpleasant sigh, Thor erases any heavy thoughts that will sink him into his bed for the rest of the day, and quickly dresses for school. His mother, an ethereal woman with passions as unwordly as her wisdom, knocks swiftly and calls out his name.

“I’m awake, mother!” His voice booms, and all his morning grimness fades away as he slings his bookbag across his back and heads downstairs. His father, ever so terse and serious, hands him a plate of breakfast wordlessly and continues to stare into space. His hollow skin, diseased from years of treatment and agony, shines in the morning light. 

It takes three shakes and a shout to wake him from his trance. Thor kisses his mother on the cheek as her tears swell from fright. She should be used to the fear, but it always hits her as if she had been half a world away. 

“Will you be coming to our game tonight? You know I've practiced all summer for it.” His mother leans forward into her seat and Odin shuts his eyes, cursing unintelligible names and shaking uncontrollably.

“I- I don’t think we can anymore. We aren’t the most  _welcomed_  guests, are we? Live up to your expectations, son. You’re to be home-“

“No later than eight.”

Odin dips his head low, leaning against the table for support. 

"Your father isn't ready to go out- not after what happened last time, at your game, son."

“I expect nothing less than victory from you.” Odin’s voice rumbles and tear apart the floorboards and Thor gives his strongest smile and runs. 

-

When Thor was young, he had known a brilliant star. he sung about him, and their lives were easy waltzes back then. He doesn’t find the will to sing anymore, but he can compose melodies within seconds of remembering. 

Thor looks into the eyes of a black hole when Loki blows cigarette breath onto his face. He’s sitting, long and compact, cocking an eyebrow. 

“I do know you, don’t I?” His smirk falls flat when Thor’s face doesn’t change, even a bit. He doesn’t know why Loki constantly drifts in and out of his life in the most aimless and confusing way. Thor lets himself stare at Loki, as if he’s brimming in water, almost visible, almost there, almost alive.

“Everyone knows me. Everyone knows you!”

“Keep your voice down, you brute! You don’t want to be seen with me, do you?” Loki’s wistful smile that’s never quite a smile illuminates his pale face and Thor shakes his head.

“It isn’t that.” 

“So what caused you to stumble upon me? Sheer coincidence? Or did a more, _base_  desire led you to my humble abode?” 

“You don’t honestly expect me to believe you live here?” 

“Why, Thor, what emancipated eighteen year old wouldn’t jump at the chance of living in the forest only minutes away from their dreaded establishment of learning?”

“You shouldn’t be living like this.”

“Noble words.”

“Your parents don’t leave their home anymore.” 

“They work at home.” Thor pauses, watching as Loki’s lips curve, so sharp, like dried roses. 

“They smoke weed until they can’t remember which son died and which son left, and then they wake up and go to work and come home and fight. An impasse for me, really.”

“So you left?”

“Answer me this, son of odin. Do you ever feel wrong? Reconstructed, even?”

“No.”

“And they call me the liar.” 

“What are you talking about?” Thor presses his hand to Loki, pulling him closer. Loki fists his shirt, letting his head fall onto Thor’s neck, pulsing and so nostalgic. 

“Not like this, not like this, not now.” Loki mutters into the hemline of his shirt.

“Are you alright?” 

“Why don’t you smile anymore, Thor? We were friends once, if you recall, you smiled a lot then.” 

“I'm hiding.” He doesn't mean for his voice to trickle tremulously from his throat, but it does. Thor’s eyes are wide, startled, but his fingers know where to go. Loki’s eyes are finally shy, quieted. 

Loki chuckles, and all the apprehension Thor feels coasts, driftwood in the sea.

“Infantile as ever-” Loki stops himself short, and glares as he pulls back.

“I, I think you should come home. To my home I mean-“

“That doesn’t seem like a good idea, Thor.” Loki quickly straps his things into his bag, large and ripped, and as quick as the moment unfurls, it relapses and cocoons itself once again.

“What are you running towards?” Thor calls out, frustrated and confused and covered in dirt. The cypresses shudder as the autumn breeze rumbles, striking him down, as he leans back into the thicket of moss, watching Loki. 

“Don’t you mean what am I running away from?” Loki’s voice twinkles in the air, far away, disconnected and light.

“I dont know.” Thor mutters, standing up, trailing his bicycle back to school, in time for the game. 

-

The atmosphere is frigid and crystalline, but the moon illuminates the glass around Loki’s bare feet. The abandoned cabin has become a corner of the earth in which he isn’t the god of mischief, nor the strange boy down the street, anymore- he was no one. The longer he puts off the pain, the longer he hides and the shorter his breath comes, the closer he comes to what he’s been chasing after. 

He watches the orange street lights flicker and picks up a stained glass shard and throws it weakly. His tears don’t know when to stop and he crouches in the glass, his hands swimming in blood and his mind afloat. 

He regrets all he’s done, this one time- and a sliver of his wickedness kicks in, his inhuman, serpent-like cruelty prepares a galaxy of amassed energy, as bright as his eyes, burning in a emerald haze. 

How many lives can sate his desire to burn all to the ground? Will the lukewarm hand of a higher being ever press against his chest and exact his heart? Will someone ever pluck his existence and crush it within a matter of seconds?

All this hate has conjured itself from inside himself- had he only let thor live his new life alone, he would have been as unburdened as all the humans. By extending such a tremendous amount of his magical prowess to recreating this life for his older brother, he had already extended parts of his own life to hel. 

He wants to hide in Thor, forfeit himself to the sanctuary his brother has always been. 

It is his fault- he watched Thor, his mind born anew, in equal parts fascination and desperation. His watching became pining, and his pining was his undoing. This body is so  _human_ , he thinks, and after grabbing gauze he delicately wraps it over the gaping wounds. 

The window should have been his gateway- perhaps if he could have punched through it hard enough he could have let this fallible body be torn apart. 

He shuffles through the dirt outside- despite creating a new life on earth along Thor, he could not control all the contingencies that were to follow. He could not predict that he would need to raise himself-  _funny that_ , he whispers to the chill in the wind,  _a monster cast away by all sends himself worlds away, only to be orphaned once again._

He craves solitude with someone- he burns for Thor. 

Loki’s anger settles into the resentment its final form always takes, and he lets the roses lilt- the ones he could simply look at and keep alive for years beyond their lifetime. He’s kept them since he was four. Thor is nowhere near, but a small smile placates him until he falls asleep in the dirt and blood.

-

The fire is lost, drifting between raging and dull. Thor’s demons are screaming at him- to move, to stay, to close his mouth and shut his eyes and to let his pulse lessen to a stop. He knew, he  _knew_  this would happen, but he never thought he’d see it come to life.

His mother’s stomach quivers, and he lays a palm to her as she sobs- a sharp and windless cry wrenched from a song of the earth, itself.

Thor wants to uproot the grounds and scrape his fingernails into the dirt and continue digging until nothing is left, but he swallows his pain and in its place comes an overwhelming feeling of  _wrongness._

He thinks back to Loki. Loki, the hollow and familiar soul that severs him in two- he doesn’t know why he hurts more looking at Loki than anyone else. 

He thinks further to what Loki had said- and  _yes,_ he admits, there is something lingering, an unidentifiable shadow of misconception in his life. Loki knows.

His father’s finger twitches as his eyes close, and the ambulance takes away his entire life in moments. He’s left next to a slew of cars and the translucent fire. A thunderous shout from the heavens abruptly reminds him that he’s crying, and he finds more solace in the lightning that strikes overhead, than any of the people he’s ever loved. He doesn’t question if it’s a good thing, or bad. 

His consciousness travels, an odyssey of disproportion and blurred reality. He thinks back to his life, what a  _mirage_  it had been. What _L oki_ had done. He knows now. He doesn’t want anyone to see him cry. The main road is empty, but yards behind he can see the school, he can see the game continuing without him. He can see no one but he knows he goes by unnoticed. 

His body slugs forward as the rain continues, faithless in his departure. Migard isn’t for him, anymore. The car, a few feet away, creaks and hisses as the road stretches boundlessly behind him.

-

The stars are disconnected, twisting, alive, around his eyes. Thor doesn’t know what draws him further from where he should be, but he soldiers on, the rain numbing to his skin. He finds a shimmering lake, blazoned in the dark with a pulsating aura of green, textured in the air like watercolors. 

He knows it all too well, and he isn’t for the briefest moment okay. 

Loki’s lips are in a careless smirk. Thor blinks, and the wet exhausted cement of emotion hardens in his chest, in his lungs, and he looks at loki on the floor- at peace with his suffering. 

“Perhaps I didn’t cover my trail enough. Come to make me bend in apology and send you home,  _darling_  brother?” 

“This- this was all you? All of it?” 

“Well if you must put it that way, then yes, all the glory is mine, for all these happenings stemmed from me.” Loki looks up at him from his place in the garden, 

“ _S_ _top - _stop speaking with a villainous tongue and for once answer in your plainest tone. Everything that has happened in this life, was your doing? And the eventual unraveling of this, this  _ruse-_ it was a forethought, another one of your plans?” 

Thor settles in the dirt, the sky revolving and churning beyond them. Thor looks across the garden, Loki on his back, his shirt rising above his waist, breathing unevenly and heavily, his chest diving and rising, eyes crawling, fingers cringing. 

“Have we become so terribly disjointed that even the ornate jewels of my speech trouble you so? Or have you become so terribly  _thick_  that my words are not elementary enough for you?” 

“Would you prefer to prattle on such a subject, with your  _slander_  and  _frivolities,_ or can you speak honestly for once?” 

“Ah, right where it hurts, brother. Why not call me what all the others call me and cast me out, and that be that, if you see me in such a light.” 

“Because I never have. There’s a difference between believing in something and stating its apparent nature. a magic of different sorts, Loki.” 

Loki barks out a laugh but his eyes don’t leave Thor’s, daring him to come closer, to speak forever. 

“To answer the question at hand, yes and no. Following the temperament of my being, I missed worthy elements to this situation that utterly destroyed my vision. Simply put, I failed in foresight. Failed…” He lets an arm, one splayed against his forehead, with fingers in his dark tresses, fall limply into the mounds of leaves around him. 

“Your vision being?” 

“You know, Thor, you are being unpleasantly patient at the moment. I imagined alot more _physical_  questioning. Intimidation does suit you best, brother.” 

With every drawl of the word 'brother', Thor’s stomach sinks lower, his heart aflame. He ignores Loki and stares at him, and Loki sighs.

“The Jötunn and Aesirs alike all sleep to the same dream- to be rid of the god of mischief, the serpent that thrives on madness and treachery-  _oh,_  what a pained existence he must lead, depriving creatures of their happiness,  _oh,_  what a death so meaningless as the life he was given. I care little for the words of the unknowing. Besmirch me until my name ferments! I can live with that. But I- I do think it’s fair to do one kindness after all the misery wrought.” 

Loki struggles, as if his own thoughts are fighting their way to be voiced through a blackened throat. 

“The only person deserving to never have known Loki Laufeyson would be you, wouldn’t it be, brother? Wouldn’t it be better that way, to have never known me at all?” His voice is small, his eyes are oceans lapsing back and forth, timeless, far away. 

“There’s a nebula inside you, Thor, vast and enchanting, something I took a glimpse into, once or twice, centuries ago. Perhaps I lost myself in there, Thor. You could say it was always you, only you. And yet my only wish is to keep it for myself, to have no one dare to find that which you yourself are unaware of. I posses all the magic of the realms, and none of it compares to that which hides in your heart. Even if I were to discard my life, my soul would never find a home to contain itself. Infectious, venomous love, fit for the lord of that which is evil, wouldn’t you agree?” 

“Living with such unwholesome sentiments deprives me of the ability to move with the saints, to live in righteousness. I sin, I am a leech, a mistake in time and space. We live longer than most beings could ever dream of- and yet already I fear I've extended my welcome. Thor, if you had one chance to repair that which you’ve created- one sole opportunity to give back what you’ve taken, would you not? I wanted to give you a life without a trace of me. You’ve been defined as the brother of a bastard, and I, the brother of a hero. My title is true, and yours should not be.” 

“My love is dead upon birth- I love you so dearly  _because_  I am missing so much of myself. It’s falsified, unworthy of you.”

Thor fears his brother has slipped far beyond deliverance. 

“You stare so intently, it’s blinding. I've split my sides, spilling the little portion of honesty I can muster. Don’t leave me here without an answer.” 

Loki smiles wistfully but his eyes are resonant with the truths desperately in need of escape- with the truths that have already escaped, trapped in their airs, brimming on their skin and clouding in their eyes.

“You cannot place all that I am and all that I've done in such separate boundaries, Loki. We are neither wholes of any one side of the spectrum of goodness. If my love is what you desire then you have had it, and at times even squandered it. If i am to be loved by you then I do not _mind_ if all others find me despicable! If you remember me beyond life then I do not care if all others forget. B _ut you cannot_  allow this to continue- this self-reckoning, this manipulation of  _lives,_  to find a world most suitable for everyone but yourself. Are you  _further damning yourself?_  Why can’t you forgive yourself? That is what keeps such an unbridled war so cold between us, Loki. Your love is not unworthy of me. Your love is not even debatable. I've never questioned it, and I will promise that you will never have to question mine again.”

“My love will devour and ravish you, Thor.” 

Loki’s breathless, the clouds are willows that wilt in the darkness that consumes the earth’s skies. _M_ _idgardis enrapturing , L_oki quickly thinks as Thor approaches him, thunderous and gentle as he’s always been, eyes potent and engrossing. 

Loki wants to live in a dream, to drift from reality and forget all that he’s said and done, he wants to become a concept, a theory- he wishes to never have materialized if love truly is the foundation of all beings. _E_ _achparticle in creation contains love_ _,_ he agrees in himself as Thor walks closer, _and they will never find the answer of what to do with it._

“And my love will defile you, Loki. I would not have it any other way.”

He’s a steady blur as he dips and pulls Loki to him, hands wound against his back, skin warm and their solitude finds one another. Loki shivers like a wind chime against Thor’s surrendered breaths, the same breaths that shelter him. He wants to push him away, he wants to wait forever, he wants to remain in this moment, he wants to cry. 

The beauty isn’t in their kiss, as Loki curves forward and pushes his all into Thor, but in the numbing seconds afterwards that captures their melancholy and rebirth and compresses its complexities into one single sound- they can hear their calm in the silence that ensues. 

“Loki, shall we go home?”

“I know the way, if you know the way.” 


End file.
